CyanogenMod

The CyanogenMod team has announced the release candidate phase of CM 10.1 is over – the final version is going to drop later today. If your device has been getting the RC builds, you can expect a final version of this popular ROM to be waiting for you in the morning.

Devices that haven't been updated to release candidate builds up to now won't be part of this first push. That includes Tegra 2 phones and tablets, as well as some Samsung Exynos devices.

Privacy Guard, the feature formerly known as Incognito Mode for apps, will make its way into CyanogenMod starting tonight. Steve Kondik, Mr. Cyanogen himself, has merged the ability to enable Privacy Guard support into all future nightly builds. Just to be clear, this new feature is not included in the 10.1.0 RC or stable releases currently available. Only those who like to walk on the wild side are getting their hands on this feature right away.

A new CyanogenMod feature is currently under review, and it looks staggeringly cool. Developed by Nebojsa Cvetkovic, this addition would place a new camera tile in the Quick Settings panel. Tap it, and you get a live viewfinder capable of taking snapshots right from the notification shade.

A new feature could be coming to CynaogenMod in the near future that strengthens personal privacy with a single checkbox. It's called Run in Incognito Mode, and it's being developed by Cyanogen himself, Steve Kondik. It's a simple feature that could change how comfortable you are with your apps.

In their never-ending quest to bring CyanogenMod to every Android device on the face of the planet (or at least all of them with unlocked bootloaders, modern hardware, and a big user base - not all that many, in fact, forget I mentioned it) the CM team is expanding the 10.1 build to three new devices this weekend. The unlocked international LTE version of the Galaxy S4 (GT-i9505) and Cricket's branded variant both get new nightly builds of the ROM, as does the WiFi-only version of Sony's Xperia Tablet Z.

The gold release for CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2) is very, very close, folks. The CyanogenMod team has already gone through four (count 'em, four) release candidates to date, and the fifth has just started popping up on the CyanogenMod download page. RC5 for the Sprint, MetroPCS, Cricket, and AT&T versions of the Galaxy S III are available at the time of writing, as well as the Nexus S, Nexus S 4G, Samsung Captivate, Acer Iconia Tab A700, and the Nook Tablet.

Verizon and Sprint customers who've laid down their money for the Samsung Galaxy S4 will be happy to know that they no longer have to choose between TouchWiz and nothing. After publishing nightly ROM builds for the Canadian LTE, T-Mobile, and AT&T variants of the S4, America's larger CDMA networks now have their turn. You can pick up the Sprint (jfltespr) and Verizon (jfltevzw) builds at CyanogenMod's download page now.

There's a lot happening in the CyanogenMod world this morning. First and most importantly, the AT&T variant of the Samsung Galaxy S4 now has official CyanogenMod 10.1 (Android 4.2) support, following the T-Mobile and Canadian versions. According to this Google+ post, supporting the AT&T S4 was simply a matter of patching a previous build. One nightly ROM is available at the time of writing, with more stable releases sure to follow soon.

Just a day after Sony threw developers a bone by posting the Android Open Source Project code for their flagship Xperia Tablet Z, the industrious folks at CyanogenMod have one-upped them with a release of their own. Both a release candidate (RC) and a test build of CyanogenMod ROM 10.1 (Android 4.2) have been posted to the download site, ready and waiting for you to flash to your unlocked tablet.

It's no surprise that CyanogenMod is supporting the Xperia Tablet Z; Sony has been historically friendly with the developer community, and in any case, the 1080p tablet runs on the same chipset as the more far-reaching Xperia Z smartphone.

Have you finished downloading CyanogenMod's 10.1 RC1 release for your device yet? If not, hit cancel and refresh your browser. Just three days after RC1 started rolling out, CM 10.1 RC2 has hit the download center, going up over night for forty seven devices at the time of writing, including devices from the Galaxy SIII to the Nexus Q.

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For those not sure why they should care about CM10.1 RC2, an RC or Release Candidate is basically a firmware release that the CyanogenMod team believes is up to snuff for a daily driver – a new-but-not-bleeding-edge release that's stable enough to rely on.